Chapter 156: From Fighting to Preparing (1/2)

Leaving the luggage to Lapis and Tizona, Loren and Gula rushed towards the location, from which smoke was rising.

“Is’t alright for me to fight a lil more seriously this time?”

Gula asked Loren as she followed him closely from behind. Still running, Loren spared her a half-glance and replied:

“Not a good idea. Play it safe, play it safe.”

“Why’d you leave Tizona-chan behind then?”

If Gula could fight in earnest, it would surely be easy. But no matter how strong the bandits were, there was still the possibility that not all of the town guards are killed off by the time Loren and Gula reached them. Loren couldn’t let Gula eat the bandits when there were witnesses around.

“To keep her eyes off us.”

As long as Tizona wasn’t there to see it, if they could sufficiently feign ignorance about the whole thing later, Loren did plan to let Gula loose a little. Even if there were witnesses.

“I wonder if I can secretly eat somethin’ then…”

They reached the south district of the town while talking. There were fires here and there, as well as guard corpses lying on the ground, probably killed by the bandits. They could also see the bandits that had invaded the town moving about. The scene made Loren stop and rub his eyes.

“This is rather amazing, isn’t it?”

There was a reason why Loren had to stop. What was happening was completely different from the image of a ‘bandit attack’ Loren had in his mind.

“Don’t care about the guards! Just take the goods!”

“And don’t go after the residents! If you have that much free time at hand, go move the bags!”

“Don’t go burn everything like idiots! Only burn the buildings!”

From the look of it, the bandits were moving their loot out one by one in a well-organized manner. Several of them seemed to be in charge of supervising the process and under their orders, the other bandits were packing their loot, loading them onto wagons, and the fully-loaded wagons were leaving the town one after another.

“Seems like they’ve already wrapped up everythin’.”

From behind Loren’s back, Gula peeked at the scene and voiced her impression. But watching the way-too-well trained bandits working gave Loren a very bad feeling.

“Aren’t they behaving too well?”

Gula put his bad feeling into words.

Attack, kill, loot, burn, then run; bandits’ MO could be summed up by those words. But the behaviors of the bandits raiding this town are very different from those lawless acts; they moved as if they had been trained.

“So… wha do we do now?”

“What do we do, you ask… No matter how well-behaved they are, they’re still carrying this town’s supplies away, aren’t they?”

If Loren was asked whether well-behaved bandits should be let off, then the answer was no. Still, the too-strangely-behaving bandits made it difficult for him to just kill them. He wondered what was up with them.

“Then I can eat some, right?”

“Only if you take care to not get found out.”

As if having received a permission, Gula licked her lips, as she passed Loren, then jumped right into the midst of bandits carrying supplies out of town.

To the bandits, who had finished their raid and were now wholly engaged in transporting loot, Gula’s assault was a great surprise. In an instant, more than half of them had fallen prey to the invisible fangs and disappeared.

“What?! What’s going on?!”

“Are there still some guards left?”

The bandits burst into an uproar like a nest of ants being poked at. Watching from the shadow of a building, Loren couldn’t decide who was the villain here, them or Gula. The bandits were surely in the wrong, as they did attack the town – that was an undeniable fact, but Gula, who lunged at them like a dog off leash and immediately started an indiscriminate slaughter, certainly didn’t look like someone who was working to help the town.

“Damn! What’s with this woman?!”

“It’s just like there are many teeth around here!”

“Run! Let the wagons go first! Dump the leftovers!”

Even in the midst of considerable chaos, the bandits still acted fast. Except for those fighting Gula, all others immediately gathered their loot bags, got on the remaining wagons and made off at full speed. Loren admired their quick reaction, but it was not like Gula would let her opponent get away.

“Wha?! You even don’t leave any food behind?!”

Light spheres shot out at the same time of her shout, accurately destroyed the axles of the wagons. Losing their wheels, the wagons bounced on the ground and tumbled over. Loren watched the display while casually twisting the neck of a bandit who had noticed him and had come to attack.

The lucky bandits who fell out from the driver’s seat immediately got up and readied their weapons. The unlucky ones stayed still with broken or twisted bodies. But in no time, the ones who could get up had their bodies torn off, chewed off, and swallowed into thin air by Gula.

Before long, Loren and Gula were the only ones who were still moving at the place. Gula wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, relaxed her body, then turned towards Loren, who was watching everything from a distance like some sports game.

“All done?”

“Thanks. Any witnesses?”